Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
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Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is one of the most popular English nursery rhymes. It combines the tune of the 1761 French melody "Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman" with an English poem, "The Star", by Jane Taylor. The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann.
The English lyrics are normally as follows:
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- Up above the world so high,
- Like a diamond in the sky.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
The repetition of the first two lines at the end is not in the original poem, but it allows the words to fit the melody.
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[edit] Misconceptions
A common misconception, reinforced by its appearance as a "correct answer" in the original edition of Trivial Pursuit, is that the music was written by Mozart. Mozart did not compose the original French melody, but he did write 12 variations on it; these variations are listed as K. 265 (later K. 300e - see below) in the Köchel-Verzeichnis.[1]
Another misconception appears to be that all versions of the song could be qualified as nursery rhymes. On the contrary, the original French version of the text was not intended for children's ears, see below.
[edit] Melody
- Tema (file info) — play in browser (beta)
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Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in ABC notation, C major:
- CCGGAAG
- FFEEDDC
- GGFFEED
- GGFFEED
- CCGGAAG
- FFEEDDC
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in sol-fa notation (d r m f s l t d = do re me fa so la ti do)
- d d s s l l s
- f f m m r r d
- s s f f m m r
- s s f f m m r
- d d s s l l s
- f f m m r r d
[edit] Appearances of the melody
Many songs in various languages have been based on the French original, "Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman". In English, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" shares its melody with the "Alphabet Song" from 1834, and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep".
The German Christmas carol "Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann", with words by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, also uses the melody, as does the Hungarian Christmas carol "Hull a pelyhes fehér hó", and the Dutch "Altijd is Kortjakje ziek".
Several famous classical compositions have been inspired by the tune:
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Theme and Variations (K265)
- Camille Saint-Saëns, Carnival of the Animals, 12th movement (Fossiles) quotes the tune
- Ernő Dohnányi, Variations on a Nursery Tune
- John Corigliano, The Mannheim Rocket
During the bridge of the Indigo Girls song, "World Falls," Emily Saliers picks the first seven notes of the melody on her guitar as Amy Ray sings "I'm laughing, I'm under a starry sky."
[edit] French lyrics
[edit] French original version
The original French rhyme Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman, was far from a children's rhyme. Apparently it originated in the first half of the 18th century. As there was no published version of the text before 1774, several slightly differring versions of what would have been the "original" version exist:
- "La confidence" (anonymous)
- AH! VOUS DIRAI-JE MAMAN?, as published in the early 20th century in a collection of French songs by Jean Gilleguin.
- Comparing two versions of "La Confidence" with the nursery rhyme version
The main thrust of these versions is that the girl confiding a secret to her mother has been seduced by "Silvandre". Only in the last version of the versions compared on the last webpage mentioned above, the girl apparently made a (narrow) escape ("Je m'échappai par bonheur"[2]), in the other versions the girl appears to have been "beaten" by L'Amour ("Love").
As for the history of the melody and the non-nursery rhyme version(s) of the French text:[3]
- 1761: first publication of the music (without lyrics) of Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman in "Les Amusements d'une Heure et Demy" by Mr. Bouin (Paris), p. 1.
- Around 1765, the words and music appear in a manuscript entitled "Recueil de Chansons" under the title "Le Faux Pas", p. 43.
- 1774: earliest known printed publication of the lyrics together with the music in volume two of "Recueil de Romances" by M.D.L. (De Lusse) published in Brussels, under the title "La Confidence – Naive" (p. 75).
- Around 1780 (Paris): the words and music appear in sheet music under the title "Les Amours de Silvandre".
- 1785: First publication of Mozart's Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman variations.
As for the composition date of Mozart's Variations, originally the variations were thought to have been composed in 1778, while Mozart stayed in Paris from April to September in that year, the assumption being that the melody of a French song could only have been picked up by Mozart while residing in France. Later analysis of Mozart's manuscript of the composition by Wolfgang Plath rather indicated 1781-1782 as the probable composition date. Consequently, in the chronological catalogue of Mozart's compositions the composition was renumbered from K. 265 to K. 300e.[4]
[edit] French nursery rhyme version
Origin unknown.
| French lyrics | English translation |
|---|---|
|
Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman, |
Ah! I shall tell you, mum, |
The French nursery rhyme version also appears with slight variations:
| French lyrics | English translation |
|---|---|
| A variation | |
|
Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman, |
Ah! I would tell you, Mama, |
| Another variation | |
|
Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman, |
Ah! I shall tell you, Mama, |
Notes: *An antienne is literally an antiphon, a short liturgical text chanted or sung alternately by two choirs preceding or following a psalm or canticle.
[edit] Complete lyrics
Perhaps it is little known that Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star actually consists of 5 verses, with the fifth verse rarely sung. Here's the complete 5 verses, taken from the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (2nd edition, 1997), with the repetition of the first two lines added to fit the melody.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- Up above the world so high,
- Like a diamond in the sky.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- When the blazing sun is gone,
- When he nothing shines upon,
- Then you show your little light,
- Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- Then the traveller in the dark,
- Thanks you for your tiny spark,
- He could not see which way to go,
- If you did not twinkle so.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- In the dark blue sky you keep,
- And often through my curtains peep,
- For you never shut your eye,
- Till the sun is in the sky.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- As your bright and tiny spark,
- Lights the traveller in the dark,—
- Though I know not what you are,
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
[edit] Other text versions
The song is a popular target for parodies. A parody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", recited by the Mad Hatter, appears in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It reads:
- Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
- How I wonder what you're at!
- Up above the world you fly,
- Like a teatray in the sky.
- Twinkle, twinkle—
The Mad Hatter is interrupted in his recitation. "The Bat" was the nickname of Professor Bartholomew Price, one of the Dons at Oxford, a former teacher of Carroll's and well known to the Liddell family. It is one of the few parodies in the Alice books of which the original is still widely known.
A Latin translation appears in Mary Mapes Dodge's When life is young (1894):
- Mica, mica, parva stella,
- Miror quaenam sis tam bella.
- Super terra in caelo,
- Alba gemma splendido.
- Mica, mica, parva stella,
- Miror quaenam sis tam bella.
A 'jargon' version was written by John Raymond Carson (1936 - 1984) who rephrased the song as 'scintillate scintillate, globule vivific'.
Another parody was created for Sesame Street . In a short skit, Muppet composer Don Music, overcoming writer's block, struggles to pen the nursery rhyme.
An anonymous astronomy parody, quoted in Violent Universe by Nigel Calder (BBC, 1969), refers to pulsars and quasars. A different version of this parody attributed to George Gamow and Nigel Calder was published in Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction by Linda Sparke and John Gallagher (Cambridge University Press, 2000 - ISBN 0521597404).
Another parody was used on Degrassi: The Next Generation episode Voices Carry, where Liberty (Sarah Barrable-Tishauer) and J.T. (Ryan Cooley) made up as a protest song for a school play. They sang it in front of Mr. Raditch (Dan Woods) for which they got in trouble.
The Girl Scouts of America placed a full page ad in the March 19th 2006 New York Times containing an a version of the rhyme that was "resung by science" as part of their Girls Go Tech campaign.
The children of the Yukon territory in northern Canada are taught the following alternate lyrics:
- Twinkle twinkle northern lights
- shimmer in the artic night
- up above the clouds so high
- green blue ribbons in the sky
- twinkle twinkle northern lights
- sparkle in your dreams tonight
[edit] See also
- Mozart's Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirais-je, Maman"
[edit] References
- ^ See http://bdb.co.za/shackle/articles/twinkle.htm
- ^ See http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Thierry_klein/ahvousdi.htm
- ^ The chronology is based on an account by Bob Kosovsky, librarian at the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 2001
- ^ Based on booklet notes by Robin Golding, 1991 for Daniel Barenboims Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas and Variations, EMI Classics 8 CD box No. 5 73915 2
[edit] External links
- BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour article (with audio): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04/2006_35_wed.shtml
